Speaking of image quality, I like C1 very much. It has one of the best color rendition by default.

I would second it by LR wich I think is more powerful regarding tones adjustments but I have difficulties getting the right colors with the D800. One good solution is the kiss cross camera colors solution that get you a 1ds mkIII rendering for the D800, pretty close to C1 (X rite calibration is useless IMO). The one thing realy annoying me with LR and that prevent me to use it is the halos around saturated burnt areas (sunsets for example).

Here is the convertion of the file with C1 (I added contrast and sat) (IMO it does not justice to any raw converter and you can get there with any, except for details) :